Saint Matthew's to be renovated

EAST STROUDSBURG — The oldest catholic parish in East Stroudsburg is getting a facelift. Saint Matthew’s Church plans to invest $600,000 into renovating its 83-year-old buildings on Ridgeway Street.

“People love to see this kind of revitalization happening,” said Rev. Jerry Shantillo. “It’s about making this space more usable for a parish of our size.”

The church currently has about 2,000 registered households. That includes more than 8,000 individuals attending mass throughout the year.

“In the 1980s, this church grew four times its size,” Shantillo said. “Even though the population is declining now, it’s still bigger than this church was meant to house.”

St. Matthews was founded in 1901 at a former site near South Courtland Street. The parish relocated in 1934, when its current church building was completed.

It did not include a restroom at that time.

“We have one bathroom in our church right now,” Shantillo said. “We’ll have a line of 10 or 12 people some days.”

The renovations will add four new bathrooms to replace the current one. A redesigned entrance will make those and the rest of the building handicap accessible also.

Church leaders divided the project into three phases. The first started in July, when contractors began removing walls inside the parish hall of the adjacent building.

“The new hall seats about 200,” Shantillo said. “It’s a place to get people together.”

The building had once housed Notre Dame Elementary. Its original bathroom fixtures were intended for use by children.

Those bathrooms have been removed. They will be replaced by a men’s bathroom and a women’s bathroom with three toilets each.

The church periodically provides the parish hall as a place for homeless people to seek temporary refuge from the elements, Shantillo said. Room temperatures were previously controlled by a heating system shared with the main church building.

The new parish center will have its own heating and air conditioning.

“We use it as a warming and cooling center,” he said. “This will be much more efficient.”

Parish hall expansions will cost $207,000 for phase one of the renovation. The church has raised more than half of the project’s total cost, Shantillo said. Phases two and three will be completed once more funding becomes available.

Phase two will cost $279,000 for improvements to the main church building, including new bathrooms. An existing library space into an overflow area for the sanctuary during phase two also. The room will seat 100-150 additional people.

Phase two will also redesign the building’s main entrance. An open porch will be enclosed, and a ramp will be added to provide better handicap accessibility.

Phase three will be the least expensive, at a $114,000 expected cost. It includes an expansion of the church office space and conference room.

Construction planning began about 18 months ago, Shantillo said. Parishioners had expressed a need for facilities that better served the community.

“We surveyed the members of our parish when I got here,” he said. “They told us they wanted to do a better job ministering to our young and helping our poor.”

“They also wanted a parking lot, so we’re giving them that too.”

A group of church-owned houses on Ridgeway were demolished in August. That space will soon provide 55 additional parking spaces near the church’s entrance.

Shantillo said the church expects to begin either phase one or two sometime in October.

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